Boehner and Romney had rare meeting on Monday
Updated 4:30 p.m. ET
(CBS News) House Speaker John Boehner and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney sat down for a private one-on-one meeting yesterday in the Atlanta area. The communications Director for the speaker's campaign team, Cory Fritz, confirmed the get-together, which was the first meeting of the two leaders since Mr. Boehner endorsed Romney in April.
Fritz said the two men spoke for about an hour to discuss ways they could work together in the months ahead.
A Republican aide with knowledge of the meeting told CBS News that Romney will join Boehner in Troy, Ohio, which is part of Boehner's congressional district, this Sunday afternoon. The event would be their first campaign event together.
Coordination between House Republicans and the Romney team will be critical as major news events like the upcoming Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act and the continuing response to American's economic struggles will be major factors in how Republicans fare this November.
The most important coordination between the two camps will be over the Republican response to the Supreme Court's ruling on the health care law.
Romney said this morning that "regardless of what they do, it's going to be up to the next president to either repeal and replace Obamacare or to replace Obamacare. And I intend to do both if I'm the president." Romney also said if the Supreme Court upholds the health care law he would "repeal it on day one by sending out a waiver to all 50 states to keep them from having to pursue Obamacare."
Boehner has been encouraging his members to emphasize that while House Republicans would want to replace the health care law if the Supreme Court strikes it down, they would not repeat Democrat's mistakes of doing it all at once in a massive bill. House Republicans favor a step by step approach.
On the economy, House Republicans have scheduled key votes over the summer on extending all tax breaks passed by the Bush Administration in 2001, laying the groundwork for tax reform efforts in 2013 and passing bills meant to boost domestic energy production. All efforts that could help Romney as he campaigns against President Obama or could put him on defense since Democrats have said these Republican efforts will just paint the GOP as protectors of the wealthy and big oil.
An aide to Governor Mitt Romney described the meeting with Boehner as friendly, but would offer no other details.
